Experts: Human brain may be to blame for Dallas police account of shooting

Twice, Dallas police Officer Christopher Watson gave investigators his account of what happened in the moments that led to his partner shooting a mentally ill man in Rylie.

Twice, Watson got it wrong, officials say.

Police Chief David Brown said he was “taken aback” by Watson’s statements. He ordered an internal investigation into Watson’s accounts after his partner, Officer Cardan Spencer, shot Bobby Gerald Bennett on Oct. 14.

“How did he see something that didn’t happen?” Brown asked at a news conference announcing Spencer’s termination.

But experts said it’s actually common for people to create a false memory — and cling to it — when recounting how a stressful incident played out.

“It happens not just during traumatic events, but to most of us during our daily lives,” said Alexis Artwohl, a nationally known behavior consultant for law enforcement agencies. “Our memory is programmed to remember the gist of things, but we get confused about the details.”

Artwohl said many other factors can trigger false memories: an expectation of what was going to happen, an egocentric view of the world or even a past memory inserted into a current one.

‘Truth as they know it’

And a person will genuinely believe the recollection is accurate.

“Just because someone has faulty memory doesn’t mean they are lying,” Artwohl said. “It’s the truth as they know it.”

Watson gave his first statement to police the same day Spencer shot Bennett in a cul-de-sac in the 9400 block of Crimnson Court in the southeast Dallas neighborhood of Rylie. Brown said Watson told police he saw Bennett take two steps toward the officers with a knife raised aggressively.

Retired Dallas police training Sgt. Keith Wenzel, who has sharply criticized Watson and Spencer’s tactical decisions, said police took Watson’s statement too soon. He said he needed more time to process the information correctly.

“He knows what he needs to say to make sense of this,” Wenzel said. “He’s got to make sense of this. His partner just shot somebody that could die.”

Artwohl and Wenzel said the brain needs a sleep cycle or two to process information from traumatic incidents. Brown himself said Thursday he experienced gaps in his memory for days after he was involved in a shooting years ago.

Still, Watson’s account led to Bennett’s arrest for aggravated assault against a public servant, a first-degree felony. Bennett survived the shooting and remains hospitalized.

The charge was later dropped because a neighbor’s video showed something different: Bennett initially rolled away from officers and then stood up with his hands frozen at his side. Seconds later, Bennett, whose feet hadn’t moved, fell to the ground when Spencer opened fire.

After the video

After seeing the recording in the following days, Watson amended his statement and said stress caused him to remember the incidents out of sequence, Brown said. Watson still said Bennett walked toward them with the knife raised but only after he was shot.

Artwohl said that it’s not unusual for a person to swear by their account even after seeing evidence to the contrary.

“A false memory is going to feel more real than what actually happened,” she said. “Emotional memories are much more compelling than intellectual memory.”

The chief said he’ll consider allowing officers witnessing a shooting like Watson to see a recording first.

Spencer, on the other hand, got to wait a day and see the video before making a statement. Brown said a “longstanding policy” allows officers who fire their weapon to look at any available video before they make a statement. Otherwise, officers — like any criminal defendant — could decline to make any statement.

Brown said Spencer told investigators in his statement that he saw Bennett clench the knife and thought he saw him make a move.

Artwohl said seeing a video before giving an account can be beneficial in some cases because it jogs the memory.

“The videotape is viewing the entire event, but that’s not what the officer is doing,” she said. “No human being can look at everything all the time.”

Don Tittle, an attorney representing the victim’s family, said letting Spencer see the video was like coaching him “so he could get his story straight.”

Regardless, Brown fired Spencer on Thursday despite criticism from Spencer’s attorney and others that the investigation was rushed.

Artwohl and other experts said officers can often fixate on small details and miss the bigger picture in high-pressure situations. In those tense seconds before Spencer fired, Watson and Spencer could have perceived any subtle movement as a threat.

Focus on threat

Harvey Hedden, executive director of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, said eyewitnesses to crime experience the same memory problems. Aggravated robbery victims, for instance, “can describe the gun in great detail.” But, he said, “they can’t tell you what the face of the person looked like and they’re only barely cognizant of whether it’s a male or a female sometimes.

“That effect is called tunnel vision. You focus on the threat and you cannot see what’s going on around you.”

Brown has said repeatedly that eyewitness accounts are usually unreliable right after a crime occurs.

Wenzel, who still teaches street survival classes to officers around the country, said no officer can perceive everything. Wenzel tells students that if they don’t know what happened, they should simply say so.

“What cops do is try to fill in the blanks,” Wenzel said. “Cops are supposed to see things better than anybody else, but that’s a lie. We’re human. We’re better at it, but we’re human.”

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